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Old 06-02-2007, 10:13 AM
 
Location: S Asheville
24 posts, read 645,359 times
Reputation: 101

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TO: ABDNVA

Do you live here?

The stats are about the city schools of ASHEVILLE.

Many people here in the city and county do not pay taxes...they are renters. Your mathematical equation is silly. Did you actually divide 23 mil into 68K people?
Do you own a home and pay taxes?

The post tells you that people in the county are having to pay Asheville CITY TAXES when they don't live in the city!!!!!!! The school system, is failing.

If you go back, and re-read the post, you will probably understand better.

Good luck.

 
Old 06-02-2007, 03:25 PM
 
31 posts, read 115,715 times
Reputation: 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by treehouse51 View Post
I'm not sure where the nearest Trader Joe's is.
Charlotte. Agreed, Asheville needs a TJ's.
 
Old 06-06-2007, 06:34 PM
 
Location: West Palm Beach, FL
1 posts, read 19,835 times
Reputation: 10
Default JCat Questions

Hi JCat and others.
My husband and I have enjoyed reading this entire thread and are particularly interested in your comments as we live in West Palm Beach and are considering a move to Asheville in the next year or two. We have 2 1/2 year old twins whose education and social environment are paramount to us. We would like for them to go to a public school, which is almost impossible where we live, and the kids/parents at the private schools (Palm Beach Day, Benjamin) have entitlement issues that are troubling, to say the least. I spent all my summers in Hendersonville and I have family there, but we prefer the diverse/liberal vibe of Asheville. We have looked in Biltmore Forest and the Ramble and other areas so have a pretty good grasp of the housing market but are concerned to hear that the other costs of living are so high. We would like to hear more from you about how the public and private education options in Asheville compare to those in West Palm. Thanks!
 
Old 06-07-2007, 05:27 AM
 
Location: Asheville, NC
187 posts, read 1,020,331 times
Reputation: 192
If you're looking at Biltmore Forest and The Ramble, you probably don't need to be concerned about other costs. Those are 3/4 million to several million dollar homes in those areas...
 
Old 06-07-2007, 05:43 PM
 
1 posts, read 19,792 times
Reputation: 24
Wow, this is some thread. I just stumbled across it and I'm kind of amazed at all the different viewpoints. I live in Asheville and I've been here for 7 years; I have a lot of family in the area and spent a lot of summers here as a kid. I work downtown and I live in West Asheville and my children have both attended Asheville public schools and gotten a great education; I love the Asheville city schools and I can't recommend Isaac Dickson Elementary more highly. That's the positive part. I love it here and it's never boring; there are thousands of things to do on any given evening downtown; there is fabulous hiking, biking, paddling and so on all around town and if you can't find anywhere to shop or eat, I'm totally bemused. The town is full of artists and great art, great bars, live music and musicians, funky weird people and all manner of characters and that's who and what I like. Incidentally, I was one of the photographers in the Day in the Life of Asheville project that was mentioned upthread.

Now for the negative part: if you want to move here, I really hope that you'll consider NOT buying a lot on top of a mountain because development is fast outstripping our infrastructure, ruining our environment and our views and destroying the community. And I'd like you to consider that the housing and rental prices here have essentially tripled in the last six years, which means that a lot of us who are trying to make a living here are in really bad financial straits. Asheville boasts the highest cost of living and the lowest salaries in the state of NC. I was just recently gentrified right out of the rental where I had lived for six years and it was nearly impossible to find another. Six years ago I wasn't in a position to buy - now I am, but unfortunately my middle class professional Asheville salary will not now qualify me to buy so much as a garden shed here. Do I have a right, therefore, to resent those of you who are probably older than I am, who managed to make money and buy homes when real estate prices were scaled to reflect average salaries, unlike today? You bet I do. Sorry about that. It's not all about hard work, you know - economic climates change. And yeah, it's great that you made a whole lot of money and can buy a big fancy new house. It's not so great for the environment, unfortunately, and it's not so great when your right to a big fancy house ends up trumping my right to a small old house, since you're all moving here faster than we can think and you all seem to have more money than we ever will. I guess it's old fashioned of me to try to earn a living in the town where I live. Unfortunately, that's what I do - I work for nonprofits that attempt to raise the quality of life and education in this town for everyone.

Asheville is filling up fast with retirees and wealthy people who seem bent on moving in and then announcing what they don't like and trying to change it. I don't understand staying here if you don't like it. I'm not crazy about the changes I'm seeing and I'd be thinking about moving away myself (I could make 3 times my salary elsewhere, I know) if it wasn't for my mother. . and my brother. . and my cousins. . and my kids. . . and my friends. If you want to move here, take time to understand what you're coming into. Don't just up and arrive with no idea, please. Here are some links that may be helpful for those of you who are interested in learning more about Asheville. No HTML here, huh? Ooops. I guess you have to copy and paste.
BlogAsheville - Blog Asheville: a local blog compendium that lists a lot of local blogs on the sidebar.
Flickr: The DILO Ashvegas Pool -The Day in the Life of Asheville Flickr pool.
Online, Community Magazine for Women :: Sheville.org -A local womens' website.
Asheville, North Carolina, Guide to Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding WNC area. -Asheville.com;a calendar and what's happening source.
Mountain Xpress: Independent Asheville News, Arts, Events & Information - The recently updated and now very good website for the local alternative paper, the Mountain Express.

The other thing I'd like to ask you new people to consider is starting a business that will support ten people at a living wage. By a living wage I don't mean minimum and I don't mean tips and I don't mean $10 an hour, no bennies. Because those are the jobs that are available here and there are more than enough restaurants already. The working and middle class are struggling hard in Asheville these days; what are you willing to do to help?

Last edited by Fliss; 06-07-2007 at 05:46 PM.. Reason: Oh, no html? Oops, sorry.
 
Old 06-07-2007, 05:59 PM
 
Location: Asheville
5 posts, read 35,219 times
Reputation: 14
Quote:
Originally Posted by OREGONRAIN View Post
After reading this post, I can see why I see people that have lived in Asheville now live in Portland, and vice versa, these two cities sound similiar, especially type of population and social woes
Agreed.
Having moved here to Asheville from southern Oregon almost three years ago, this has proven to have some truth to it over and over again.

There's quite the connection with Asheville, NC and Portland, Eugene, Ashland, OR. Either you moved here from there, or the other way around.
 
Old 06-07-2007, 08:28 PM
 
Location: Upstate SC
957 posts, read 2,610,906 times
Reputation: 979
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fliss View Post
Wow, this is some thread. I just stumbled across it and I'm kind of amazed at all the different viewpoints. I live in Asheville and I've been here for 7 years; I have a lot of family in the area and spent a lot of summers here as a kid. I work downtown and I live in West Asheville and my children have both attended Asheville public schools and gotten a great education; I love the Asheville city schools and I can't recommend Isaac Dickson Elementary more highly. That's the positive part. I love it here and it's never boring; there are thousands of things to do on any given evening downtown; there is fabulous hiking, biking, paddling and so on all around town and if you can't find anywhere to shop or eat, I'm totally bemused. The town is full of artists and great art, great bars, live music and musicians, funky weird people and all manner of characters and that's who and what I like. Incidentally, I was one of the photographers in the Day in the Life of Asheville project that was mentioned upthread.

Now for the negative part: if you want to move here, I really hope that you'll consider NOT buying a lot on top of a mountain because development is fast outstripping our infrastructure, ruining our environment and our views and destroying the community. And I'd like you to consider that the housing and rental prices here have essentially tripled in the last six years, which means that a lot of us who are trying to make a living here are in really bad financial straits. Asheville boasts the highest cost of living and the lowest salaries in the state of NC. I was just recently gentrified right out of the rental where I had lived for six years and it was nearly impossible to find another. Six years ago I wasn't in a position to buy - now I am, but unfortunately my middle class professional Asheville salary will not now qualify me to buy so much as a garden shed here. Do I have a right, therefore, to resent those of you who are probably older than I am, who managed to make money and buy homes when real estate prices were scaled to reflect average salaries, unlike today? You bet I do. Sorry about that. It's not all about hard work, you know - economic climates change. And yeah, it's great that you made a whole lot of money and can buy a big fancy new house. It's not so great for the environment, unfortunately, and it's not so great when your right to a big fancy house ends up trumping my right to a small old house, since you're all moving here faster than we can think and you all seem to have more money than we ever will. I guess it's old fashioned of me to try to earn a living in the town where I live. Unfortunately, that's what I do - I work for nonprofits that attempt to raise the quality of life and education in this town for everyone.

Asheville is filling up fast with retirees and wealthy people who seem bent on moving in and then announcing what they don't like and trying to change it. I don't understand staying here if you don't like it. I'm not crazy about the changes I'm seeing and I'd be thinking about moving away myself (I could make 3 times my salary elsewhere, I know) if it wasn't for my mother. . and my brother. . and my cousins. . and my kids. . . and my friends. If you want to move here, take time to understand what you're coming into. Don't just up and arrive with no idea, please. Here are some links that may be helpful for those of you who are interested in learning more about Asheville. No HTML here, huh? Ooops. I guess you have to copy and paste.
BlogAsheville - Blog Asheville: a local blog compendium that lists a lot of local blogs on the sidebar.
Flickr: The DILO Ashvegas Pool -The Day in the Life of Asheville Flickr pool.
Online, Community Magazine for Women :: Sheville.org -A local womens' website.
Asheville, North Carolina, Guide to Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding WNC area. -Asheville.com;a calendar and what's happening source.
Mountain Xpress: Independent Asheville News, Arts, Events & Information - The recently updated and now very good website for the local alternative paper, the Mountain Express.

The other thing I'd like to ask you new people to consider is starting a business that will support ten people at a living wage. By a living wage I don't mean minimum and I don't mean tips and I don't mean $10 an hour, no bennies. Because those are the jobs that are available here and there are more than enough restaurants already. The working and middle class are struggling hard in Asheville these days; what are you willing to do to help?

Couldn't have said it any better myself. I'm going to end up moving away next year, even though I like it here, because I cannot afford to buy a house here either and if I were to lose my job now I'd end up having to move anyway because I certainly can't find another one in Asheville making as much money as I do now. A great place to live, if you can afford it, but it's becoming unaffordable for the middle class. What middle class there is left, anyway.
 
Old 06-08-2007, 07:59 AM
 
2 posts, read 22,871 times
Reputation: 15
Default Floridians and Yanks aren't the only Asheville newbies

I moved to Asheville from Eastern NC to come to Warren Wilson College almost 10 years ago. For me, Eastern NC was pretty blah. Comparing Asheville to my hometown isn't really fair though, since there were maybe 10,000 people in my whole county.

I recently bought outside of town, in Candler. I was able to find a two bedroom on almost an acre for 128k. I LOVE my house. But now I live 20 minutes from downtown. My apartment in West Asheville was right across the river, bikeable to work and shopping, on the bus lines, and really sweet. Luckily, my girlfriend still lives in West Asheville, so I keep my bike at her house for short commuting.

There hasn't been much said about the west side yet, since most people seem focused on areas like Haw Creek, Biltmore Forest, Arden, et al. As far as I'm concerned, those places suck. There's too much traffic, everything is too far away from each other, and there's no neighborhood cohesion. If you are leaving South Florida because the Highway 1 corridor is a complete mess, look no further than Hendersonville Rd. My girlfriend used to own in Arden, and she never met her neighbors. In 3 years, no one bothered to introduce themselves to her. She moved into West Asheville and knew everyone on the street before the moving truck was gone.

The minimum for a house on the west side, one with a CO at least, is probably around 160k. That's lower than the rest of the city, but still not really in line with the median income. That's why most of the people who work downtown live outside the city.

Someone recently inquired as to where the gays could be found. The gays are all over town. We have one dance bar: Scandals, one dance/hangout/karaoke bar: Hairspray, and innumerable hangouts. Smokey's Tavern, The New French Bar, Westville, Outspoken, Malaprops. Scully's used to be good, but now they got all fratty. We are welcome pretty much everywhere. West Asheville has the highest per capita concentration of same sex heads-of-household, the only census measurable method of finding gay people. 28806 is the 3rd gayest zip code in the state, behind Durham and Charlotte.

whydidi may just be expressing an opinion, but I have to wonder how he/she could be bored here. The Mountain X just published a list of the 50 greatest free things to do in town. Even if you don't drink and are broke, there's disc golf and biking and people watching and hanging out on someone's porch on a beautiful 75 degree evening, watching the sun set over Mt. Mitchell. I am never bored, and when I get antsy, I take off down the parkway to my favorite pull off and go jump in a freezing mountain stream.
 
Old 06-09-2007, 08:15 AM
 
Location: NJ
100 posts, read 419,903 times
Reputation: 35
ok i was considering Asheville to move to from NJ until I read these posts. Thanks all!
 
Old 06-10-2007, 08:46 AM
 
47 posts, read 206,462 times
Reputation: 31
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shades1979 View Post
There hasn't been much said about the west side yet, since most people seem focused on areas like Haw Creek, Biltmore Forest, Arden, et al. As far as I'm concerned, those places suck. There's too much traffic, everything is too far away from each other, and there's no neighborhood cohesion. If you are leaving South Florida because the Highway 1 corridor is a complete mess, look no further than Hendersonville Rd. My girlfriend used to own in Arden, and she never met her neighbors. In 3 years, no one bothered to introduce themselves to her. She moved into West Asheville and knew everyone on the street before the moving truck was gone.

The minimum for a house on the west side, one with a CO at least, is probably around 160k. That's lower than the rest of the city, but still not really in line with the median income. That's why most of the people who work downtown live outside the city.
I found West Asheville a welcome relief from the increasingly over-gentrified areas of Asheville proper. True, W.Ash. still has some way to go, but there are charming houses, good restaurants, friendly cafes. Young parents with children, older people, 30-somethings, fledging artists, "alternative" types mix in the stores and on the streets. Not much to do after dark but there's a strong sense among newer homeowners, store owners and non-profit groups that W.Ash. is an area worth fighting for. Check out their website:
[url]http://www.onhaywood.com/[url] it's undergoing some changes but it will give you an idea of the area.
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